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Difference between revisions of "About files"
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<h2>About Files</h2> | <h2>About Files</h2> | ||
| − | It is an Eclipse Foundation requirement | + | It is an Eclipse Foundation requirement that the [http://www.eclipse.org/legal/guidetolegaldoc.php#Abouts About file] (about.html) exist and be accurate for every plug-in, whether it contains third party code or not. If a plug-in uses or implements encryption this must also be called out in the About file. Recently I have noticed that many abouts that contain third party code are not an accurate reflection of the content redistributed in that plug-in or worse, the about file is missing! There are 2 basic [http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl/about.php about templates]: |
*about for plug-ins that contain [http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl/about.php#short ONLY EPL CONTENT] | *about for plug-ins that contain [http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl/about.php#short ONLY EPL CONTENT] | ||
*about for plug-ins that contain some or all [http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl/about.php#long NON-EPL CONTENT] - sometimes we refer to this as third party content | *about for plug-ins that contain some or all [http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl/about.php#long NON-EPL CONTENT] - sometimes we refer to this as third party content | ||
Revision as of 22:01, 20 June 2007
About Files
It is an Eclipse Foundation requirement that the About file (about.html) exist and be accurate for every plug-in, whether it contains third party code or not. If a plug-in uses or implements encryption this must also be called out in the About file. Recently I have noticed that many abouts that contain third party code are not an accurate reflection of the content redistributed in that plug-in or worse, the about file is missing! There are 2 basic about templates:
- about for plug-ins that contain ONLY EPL CONTENT
- about for plug-ins that contain some or all NON-EPL CONTENT - sometimes we refer to this as third party content
The platform also uses an ABOUT file for SOURCE PLUG-INS.
The Lucene plug-in demonstrates a simple example of an about that contains third party content. Notice the link to license files in a directory called about_files. The Europa projects tend to do this by convention so the about file isn't too long.
POINTS TO REMEMBER:
- Nested third party code must be identified in the about and all licenses applicable to all third party content in the plug-in should be linked from or present in the about.html file. See the about in the Tomcat plug-in for an example of this (MX4J is nested).
- Encryption (either use of or implementation of) should be identified in the about. See the about for the Authorization Compatibility plug-in for an example of this.